Series – The Radio: 94.5 The Bull

For the first in the series, today I listened to an hour (11am-12pm) of 94.5 The Bull online. This isn’t exactly a local radio station – I think it comes out of Wingham via London, or some such thing, but it’s definitely aimed at this area.

They play classic rock, mostly, with a few new tunes thrown in. It’s rare that I’ll tune in, and only in the car. I prefer my own CDs. But when I temporarily worked in a factory here in town, the Bull was on all the time out on the lines, and I heard a ton of it. What I noticed was a lot of repetition (as though Led Zeppelin only wrote three songs, etc). I also remember thinking that, just because it was recorded in the 70s by some nominally rock-oriented band, that didn’t mean it was worthy of radio play. Some of it was really, really bad. But that was a while ago, so I’ll be interested enough to see what I get today.

According to the station’s web site, the DJ while I’m listening is Drew Stefani. But then the DJ identified himself as Scott Thomas, so I assume this is Stefani’s slot and Thomas is filling in? He never said as much, though. Anyway, it is currently 24C (feels like 32C), with winds SE at 9.7.

And here we are at 12pm, time for news. It is currently 25C (feels like 33C), winds SSE at 11.3.

In that hour, we had:

4 times the dj talked (also reminding us of the station)
7 reminders of the station to which we’re tuned
10 commercials, some longer than others.
13 songs

As for the songs, all were songs/artists everyone knows – very safe, middle of the road shoe-in choices. No new music, in fact nothing past the 1980s. In all, not a totally unenjoyable hour. I mean, Van Halen, Deep Purple, CSNY…

Most of the interruptions to the music were (mercifully) brief, but they were numerous. The DJ kept it tight, which surprised me, actually. So, thank you, Scott Thomas, for not constantly gibbering about nothing. If I were stuck in a car without CDs and this was the only station I could pick up for entertainment, I could do a lot worse than this. I’m still not going to put it on all that often, though. Not when I have an MP3-CD deck as well as an iPod AUX jack for my 120GB ipod.

Man, when I listen to the radio, I can’t wait for the songs to end so I can hear what Craig or Marko have to say. Mandy had a daily feature called “A Hard Day’s Write” where she would discuss in detail a different Beatles song every day. And then of course there’s the Jeff Woods segments where I get to learn something new every day. I feel bad for you!

Yeah man, I scrolled through the morning’s list of songs played (I was keeping my hours’ listening list in real time, commercials and all), and it looked like a who’s who of songs most likely to appeal to the most people. Yawn.

Though the guy today didn’t do too bad, he just said his dumb thing and got out of the way. I can’t stand it when they try to force conversations between two DJs. That’s probably the worst. I’d prefer dead air to that.

You and I would get along in the car, I think. More music, less talky talk. Again about the only blabbering I enjoy is Howard Stern. And it’s all talk. I just see through it. If DJs have their shows with gimmicks and such, I think, “Alright Howard Stern wannabe…” I can listen to music all the time. Then tune in to 680 all news radio for traffic on the 1’s if I want.

On Saturday I was in the car, and turned on the radio. Rage’s We gotta take the power back played. I was like, WOW! Followed by Metallica’s One. Didn’t catch the station, but might have been Q 107.

Yup, no fights about the radio station = happy camper Aaron (who always chooses no radio station at all). So, I call road trip! Where do you wanna go? I vote for Montreal. Let’s go to MONTREAL!! Road trip wooooooo!!!

That is a cool combo on the radio. I remember the first time that happened to me. We were moving (TO MONTREAL WOOOO!) and I was driving the Rider truck full of our crap and as we got near Kingston I was scanning the dial (‘cos all it had was a radio, no CD) and I picked up a station that was rocking Tool’s Sober. Man, I CRANKED that f-ing thing.

I also remember one time, when I was in university (back when dinosaurs used to roam the earth), and we used to pick up 89X out of Detroit. And at night, well, it seems like no one cared what they did. Language got raunchy after a certain hour, and the songs played became a lot less like the sanctioned playlists from the daytime. I distinctly remember, listening one night, a DJ saying “Well, I’m going out for a smoke or two, so, here’s the entire Van Halen Diver Down album, no commercials. Catch y’all later!” and the music started and they really did play the whole album top to bottom, uninterrupted. That was pretty awesome.

But yeah, most of my radio experiences are (and have always been) fairly shite.

I know, right? It’s like people around here take their tires REALLY SERIOUSLY. And I get it. We live in the valley of the escarpment, wedged against the beginnings of Georgian Bay. To say we get some crap winter driving conditions in this neck of the words is like saying Ricky Martin enjoys golden showers. In other words, WE SURE DO. We must have ten places in this little town, all selling tires.

But in all honesty, I think maybe the one tire place was sponsoring the time I was listening to the show. I could be wrong about that, but it did seem like an awful lot of tire commercials.

I don’t know who Thomas Morewood is, but he has a great last name. Is he a DJ? ‘Cos then he could be Thomas Morewood In The Morning. Ba-dum-tish. Get it? Oh man, I’m here all week try the veal. I’m sure, whoever he is, he’s sick of stuff like that. Sorry, guy I’ve never met.

I’m glad you enjoy your radio people. I wouldn’t. We’ll have to agree to disagree on this point.

I was going to make my own post about this, but instead I decided just to post it here. I did a similar experiment and here are the results!

I decided like Aaron to cover an hour in the morning, so it’s not too different from the programming he heard. If I had done an afternoon, there would be some LeBrain promos on Marko’s show, but I chose the Midday Lockdown with DJ Patrick Dynamite.

PATRICK DYNAMITE 10:00 – 11:00 Aug 12 2014

1. Oasis – “Don’t Look Back in Anger”
Station ID
2. Def Leppard – “Pour Some Sugar On Me” (single mix)
Patrick announces Kiss/Def Leppard show tonight, and upcoming songs. “Here’s Kiss from ’79’s Dynasty, thanks for rockin’ with Dave.” Knew the album and year – bonus. (The computer doesn’t always give them this info because it often pulls songs like this from a greatest hits CD.)
3. Kiss – “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”
Station ID for morning show (5 seconds)
4. Big Wreck – “A Million Days” – great guitar solo often mistaken for Steve Morse! (CanCon)
Patrick announces contest to win tickets to Alice In Chains/Monster Truck next week. Also meet and greet!

5. Trooper – “We’re Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time)” – first song I could skip. (CanCon)
Station ID for “new rock” – Theory of a Dead Man.
6. Theory of a Dead Man – “Drown” – crappy post-grunge. (CanCon)
Patrick announces chance to win the last Dave FM Backyard Bash for the summer. Party for 20 plus a new patio set.